Jury: Molester still a danger to boys

Dec. 18, 2013

Updated Dec. 19, 2013 8:04 a.m.

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Sid Landau, 74, listens in a Santa Ana courtroom as an Orange County jury found that the twice-convicted child molester remains a sexually violent predator and should stay locked up in mental hospital because he still poses a danger to children. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Deputy District Attorney Dan Wagner speaks to the media about the jury's verdict. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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An Orange County Sheriff deputy, left, pulls out Sid Landau's wheel chair to return him to custody. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Twice-convicted child molester Sid Landau sits in a Santa Ana courtroom last month. Landau, 73, made headlines in the 1990's when he was chased from one Orange County home to another by protesters who did not want a molester in their neighborhood. He has been locked up in mental hospitals since 2000. FILE: CHRISTINE COTTER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Sid Landau, 74, listens in a Santa Ana courtroom as an Orange County jury found that the twice-convicted child molester remains a sexually violent predator and should stay locked up in mental hospital because he still poses a danger to children.LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SANTA ANA – A twice-convicted child molester looked straight ahead and showed no emotion Wednesday when a jury found he remains a sexually violent predator and should stay in a mental hospital because he poses a danger to children.

Jurors in Superior Court Judge Richard King’s court deliberated three and a half days before deciding the fate of Sid Landau, 74.

Deputy District Attorney Dan Wagner said after a 10-minute court hearing that if Landau were released in the community, children would be at risk.

“He has aged some, but he could still reoffend,” Wagner said. “We think that in the hospital is where he belongs.”

Wagner argued during the five-week jury trial that Landau is a diagnosed pedophile who has a strong sexual desire for prepubescent boys. “He is a life-long child molester,” Wagner said, “and there is no evidence of change.”

The fact that Landau has declined sex-offender therapy and is on testosterone therapy probably was a big factor in the jury’s decision, Wagner said.

Among reasons, which were part of the evidence, Landau gave for declining the therapy was that it violated his civil rights and he’s on testosterone therapy because he has early onset on osteoporosis, Wagner said.

“It also tells us a lot about the man. To me, it shows arrogance,” Wagner said.

Landau, who has been confined to a mental hospital for the past 13 years as a sexually violent predator, had completed serving his entire prison sentence on a second felony child-molestation conviction.

Deputy Public Defender Sara Ross claimed in a petition Landau is too old and ill to have the sexual impulses that drove him to molest and is no longer a sexually violent predator. Ross said she will file a motion for retrial, which will be litigated March 7.

“That’s fine. Thank you, sir,” said Landau, when King asked if he was agreeing not to be present for that hearing. Landau will be sent to Coalinga State Mental Hospital, where he has been housed.

Landau was convicted in 1982 of molesting a 10-year-old Anaheim boy and sentenced to three years in prison. He later pleaded guilty in 1988 to molesting a 9-year-old boy and was sentenced to 17 years in prison. He served eight years before he was paroled in 1996.

He was living in Placentia when police used the then-new Megan's Law to notify residents they had a convicted child molester living in their neighborhood. Landau instantly became a pariah and was chased from one temporary home to the next by protesters who waved signs and wore T-shirts that read “Get Rid of Sid.”

He received hate mail and death threats, news accounts said, and television and newspaper photographers followed his daily movements.

Landau was sent back to prison for a few months in 1997 on a parole violation when he shoved one cameraman and was returned to prison in 1998 for failing to meet with his parole officer.

He was about to be released, meaning he would be paroled without any strings, when Orange County prosecutors filed a sexually violent-predator petition against him, confining him since then to state mental hospitals.

In 2008, an Orange County jury found that Landau remained a danger to children and would stay locked up.

Jury deliberations in the current case were interrupted at one point when Judge King removed a juror for misconduct for using dictionaries to look up a word. An alternate was selected, and deliberations started anew.

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